Nocturne: A Journey in Search of Moonlight - Couverture souple

Attlee, James

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 022600046X ISBN 13 : 9780226000466

Editeur : University of Chicago Press, 2011

Synopsis

Book by Attlee James

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

“Nobody who has not taken one can imagine the beauty of a walk through Rome by full moon,” wrote Goethe in 1787. Sadly, the imagination is all we have today: in Rome, as in every other modern city, moonlight has been banished, replaced by the twenty-four-hour glow of streetlights in a world that never sleeps. Moonlight, for most of us, is no more.

So James Attlee set out to find it. Nocturne is the record of that journey, a traveler’s tale that takes readers on a dazzling nighttime trek that ranges across continents, from prehistory to the present, and through both the physical world and the realms of art and literature. Attlee attends a Buddhist full-moon ceremony in Japan, meets a moon jellyfish on a beach in Northern France, takes a moonlit hike in the Arizona desert, and experiences a lunar eclipse on New Year’s Eve atop the snowbound Welsh hills. Each locale is illuminated not just by the moonlight he seeks, but by the culture and history that define it. We learn about Mussolini’s pathological fear of moonlight; trace the connections between Caspar David Friedrich, Rudolf Hess, and the Apollo space mission; and meet the inventors of the Moonlight Collector in the American desert, who aim to cure all kinds of ailments with concentrated lunar rays. Svevo and Blake, Whistler and Hokusai, Li Po and Marinetti are all enlisted, as foils, friends, or fellow travelers, on Attlee’s journey.

Pulled by the moon like the tide, Attlee is firmly in a tradition of wandering pilgrims that stretches from Bashō to Sebald; like them, he presents our familiar world anew.

Revue de presse :

Fascinating, thoughtful, erudite, unpretentious, slightly batty and entirely captivating (John Carey Sunday Times)

A poetic and passionate story of light in darkness (The Times)

Vagrant, erudite, frequently comical. A stylist of amazing wit and skill. A compendious, moving and impassioned guide (Irish Times)

Gloriously multifaceted and engaging. A gorgeous, thoughtful book (Sunday Telegraph)

Attlee is a true enthusiast, and is fascinated by, indeed loves, his subject. He writes beautifully and often thrillingly about the moon in all its - her? - aspects, and it will be a dull-minded reader who comes away from this book without a new or at least renewed regard for the extraordinary, silver satellite that is our world's constant companion (John Banville Guardian)

A wistful, fact-filled and esoteric treat (Sunday Times)

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: University of Chicago Press
• Date d'édition: 2011
• ISBN 10: 022600046X
• ISBN 13: 9780226000466
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 309